The invention is applicable especially in systems where an information set such as an audiovisual program is made available to a user either because it has been recorded on a recording medium and it is readable by a reader such as a video recorder, a DVD (digital versatile disk) reader, a CD reader, a hard disk reader or because it is made available to the user by a remote server.
The invention is applicable especially to systems making it possible to read successively, in series, the information of a recording.
To facilitate the description, the invention will be described herein below within the framework of the displaying of an audiovisual program. The invention is, however, applicable to the reproduction by the user (reading, listening, etc.) of any other type of information ordinarily presented sequentially.
When he views an audiovisual program, a user may feel the need to skip certain sequences or rewind to an earlier sequence, or to search for a particular sequence in the recording. For this, on commercial readers (DVD readers, CD reader, video recorder, etc.) he is furnished with fast rewind and fast forward keys, with fast forward read and fast reverse read and with slow-motion keys. In the subsequent description, these keys will be designated, in a general manner, by the term “device for triggering a mode of special processing”.
However, when he leaves a first viewing sequence, so as to view or search for a second sequence, the user has difficulties in returning to the first sequence unless he notes down the address of the first sequence when he leaves it so as to return to it later manually and still he does not always return to it very accurately.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,688 teaches an apparatus for displaying recorded audiovisual program such as a video recorder. The user can mark the program by pointing the start and the end of advertising sequences. Once this marking phase has terminated, the user can navigate from one advertising sequence to another, the reading of a new sequence being performed at the start. This patent does not teach that it is possible to return to a sequence at the place that it was previously left.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,831 also teaches an apparatus for displaying audiovisual program recorded in a medium. The apparatus is furnished with means of pointing (an optical pen) making it possible to mark events of the program.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,588 teaches an IT apparatus displaying a chronological graphical representation of an event. This representation exhibits variations depending on whether the corresponding moment includes few or many elements. A marker makes it possible to place the current moment while displaying the event.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,974,015 discloses a means of digital recording of audio and/or video data. These data are chopped into packets before being recorded. None of these documents teaches the possibility of returning easily and accurately to a previous reading point.
The invention makes it possible to solve this difficulty.